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Meet the Faculty

Dr. Siamak Movahedi, Ph.D., FIPA, Cert.Psya

Director, The Institute for the Study of Psychoanalysis, Society and Culture

Personal Statement

Siamak Movahedi, Ph.D., has an L.L.B. in Law from Tehran University, an M.S. in Criminology from California State University, a Ph.D. in Sociology from Washington State University, and a Certificate in Psychoanalysis from the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst and the Institute for the Study of Psychoanalysis, Society, and Culture director at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is also a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he served as the Department Chair and the Graduate Program Director. He is a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), American Psychoanalytic Association (APSaA), National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP), life member of the American Psychological Association (APA.) and the life member of Massachusetts Psychological Association (MPA). He is the founding Director of Persepolis Psychoanalytic (PersPsy) https://perspsychoanalytic.com/, an online psychoanalytic institute in Iran. His over sixty papers and book chapters have appeared in major national and international psychoanalytic, psychological, and sociological journals, including American Sociological Review, American Psychologist, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, The Sigmund Freud Museum Symposia, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Review, Journal of Modern Psychoanalysis, etc. Dr. Movahedi received the Vision Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in 1995.

Program Affiliation

Programs in Psychoanalysis, Society and Culture

Education

Cert. Psya., Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, 1993
Ph.D., Washington State University, 1971
M.S., California State University, 1964

Research

Language and psychoanalysis; the relation between social structure and psychopathology; political suicides and self-destructive behavior; dynamics of diagnostic activity in psychoanalytic situation.

Articles & Book Chapters

Movahedi, S. (2023). The Musical Semiotics of Voice in Distance: Some Reflections on the Question of Teleanalysis. Psychoanalytic Review, 110 (December), 413-438

Movahedi, S. (2021). Is the Noise the Message in Psychoanalytic Listening?. Psychoanal. Rev., 108(1):1-25

Movahedi, S. {co-authored with McKnight, A }(2019). The Evolution of the Notion of Intimacy in Psychoanalysis and Culture. American Imago 76(4), 589-621.

Movahedi, S. (2019). Sigmund Freud’s Most Famous Psychoanalytic Drama and the Man Who Dreamed and Played the Role of the Wolfman. Psychoanalytic Discourse. 4, (May Issue) 19-29.

Movahedi, S. Moshtagh, N. (2019). Persian tales on the couch: Notes on folktales as the mirror of the contemporary cultural struggles with gender and sexuality. International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 28(2): 115-124.

Movahedi, S. (2018). Forty Shades of Gray in Iraninan Intimacy: Cross Cultural Analysis of Intimacy, Chapter 6 in Kanwal, G. and Akhtar, S. (edits). Intimacy: Clinical, Cultural, Digital and Developmental Perspectives. Routhledge Taylor & Francis: 96-108.

Movahedi, S. (2018). “Après un Rêve”: Transference of Passion and the Return of the Hidden Ghost of Desire, Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis/ Revue Canadienne de Psychanalyse, 26 (2), 115-137.

Movahedi, S. (2017). A False Dichotomy between Science and Hermeneutics, and Observation and Interpretation in the Analysis of Manifest Dreams in Clinical Work. Psychoanalytic Discourse, 3 (February).

Movahedi, S., Homayounpour, G. (2016). Il lettino e il chador. L'Annata Psicoanal. Int., 8:151-172.

Movahedi, S. and Moshtagh, N. (2016). Your Smartphone Is Watching You: Evocative Objects of Influence and Fear of Breakdown. Psychoanalytic Review, 103. 623-648.

Movahedi, S. (2015). Contextualized Language and Transferential. Aspects of Context, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, (August) 63: Pp. 641-670

Movahedi, S. and Homayounpour, G (2014). Le divan et le tchador L’Année psychanalytique international. Volume 2014, 2014/1. Pp. 87 à 109.

Movahedi, S. and Homayounpour, G (2014).  Die Couch und der Tschador, L’Année Psychanalytique Internationale, and Internationale Psychoanalyse Band 9: Moderne Pathologien, Pp. 89-1114.

Movahedi, S. (2014). The Narcissism of Minor Differences: The Status Anxiety & Disciplinary Intolerance between Sociology and Psychoanalysis. In L Chancer and J. Andrews (Ed.), The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis, Pp. 140-155 .London, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Movahedi, S. (2013). Did You Say Bizarre? Pocketing the Change as a “Post-interpretive Action.” Modern Psychoanalysis, 38, Pp.189-202.

Movahedi, S. and Homayounpour, G. (2013). Fort!/Da! and the Paradox of Women’s Visibility and Invisibility. Psychoanalysis, Monotheism and Morality: The Sigmund Freud Museum Symposia 2009-2011. Wolfgang Muller-Funk, Ingrid Scholz Strasser, and Herman Westrink (eds). Belgium: Leuvan University Press. Pp. 113-133.

Movahedi, S. & Homayounpour, G. (2013). Divan ve Çarşaf. Uluslararasi Psikanaliz Yilligi (Turkish Annual of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis), 11, 185 – 207.http://www.pandora.com.tr/urun/uluslararasi-psikanaliz-yilligi-2013/293633

Movahedi, S. (2012). Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Reported Dreams and the Problem of Double Hermeneutics in Clinical Research. Journal of Research Practice. Volume 8, Issue 2, Article M12 Retrieved from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/303/274

Movahedi, S. &  Homayounpour, G. (2012). The Couch and The Chador, International Journal of Psychoanalysis.93:1357–1375

Movahedi, S. & Jacobs, G.(2012). “Death in the Service of

Life: Individual and Cultural Projections and Practices.” In

Marcelline Block and Christina Staudt, eds., Unequal Before Death, Pp. 60-75. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Movahedi, S. (co-authored with Gohar Homayoupour)  (2012). Transferential Discourse in the Language of the (M)other, Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis/ Revue canadienne de psychanalyse, Vol. 20, No. 1, Pp. 114-143.

Death, Fantasy, and Politics of Self-Destruction. Reprinted (by the editor’s invitation) in the Italian journal, I Problemi della Pedagogia. September, 2010.

Wall Street Scandals: The Myth of Individual Greed.” (Co-authored with Laura Hansen).Sociological Forum. V. 25, No. 2, Pp 367-375. September 2010.

What Do Post-Modern Feminists Want From Freud and Psychoanalysis? Modern Psychoanalysis. v. 34, number 2, 2009; Pp. 75-83.

Weaponization of the Body and Politicization of Death. The Revista Latinoamericana de Psicopatologia Fundamental, v. 12, Pp 71-98, March, 2009.

Psychoanalysis. Entry in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology,  ed. George Ritzer (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007) Pp. 3694-3696.

Death, Fantasy and The Discovery of the Perverse.  The Psychology of Death in Fantasy and History,has been reprinted in J. Piven (Ed.), Terrorism, Jihad, and Sacred Vengeance. Giessen, GER: Psychosozial-Verlag., 2007.

The “Voice” of the Analysand and the “Subject” of Diagnosis, Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Journal of the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Society, 41 (No.2):281-305, 2005.

Death, Fantasy and The Discovery of the Perverse.  The Psychology of Death in Fantasy and History, Piven Jerry (editor), Greenwood Praeger,  February 2004.

“Narcissism” and   “Narcissistic Neurosis” two entries in The Edinburgh International Encyclopedia of Psychoanalysis; General Editor: Ross M. Skelton ( Trinity College, Dublin, Edinburgh University Press,2006) Pp. 319-320.

An Interdisciplinary Dialog on Violence: A Commentary, The Journal of Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. 28, 2004).

Quantitative Analysis of Qualitative Clinical Data. Proceeding of the annual meeting of the Hawaii International Conference on Statistics, Hawaii, 2003. ISSN # 1539-7211.

Regional Disparities in Romania: Political Participation in a Transitional Society. (co-authored with Russell Schutt, Denisa Popescu and Ali Pirzadeh) The Discourse of Sociological Practice. Vo. 5, Number 1 2003, Pp.19-26.

“Utopian Pursuit of Death American Imago. 56: Pp.1-26 (number 1), 1999.

The Discourse of Time and The Structure of Psychic Reality, Modern Psychoanalysis. 2(23):197-209, 1998.

“Women in Multinational Corporations: Old Myths, New Constructions, and some Deconstruction. Co-authored with Arlene Dallalfar. Organization. 3(4):541-554, 1996.

“Metalinguistic Analysis of Therapeutic Discourse, “Journal of The American Psychoanalytic Association, 44: number 3: 837-862, 1996.

“On Cause, Teleology and the Question of Drive versus Wish: A Comment on Nigel Mackay’s Refutation of Purposive Explanations,” Modern Psychoanalysis, 21:19-29, 1996.

“The Social Psychology of Foreign Policy and the Politics of International Images.” Human Affairs 8 {October}: 18‑37, 1985.

“Cultural Preconceptions of Time: Can We Use Operational Time to Meddle in God’s Time?”, Comparative Studies in Society and History  27 {July}: 385‑400, 1985.

“Are Freudian Slips in Trouble?” Modern Psychoanalysis 10, No. 1, p. 79‑88, 1985.

“Probability, Confirmation and Information of Theories.” Pp. 201‑261 in Lee Frees (ed.) Theoretical Methods in Sociology,  University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980.

“Drug Addicts and Addiction: Cultural Stereotypes and Clinical Theories.” Urban Life: A Journal of Ethnographic Research 7 {April}: 45‑66, 1979.

“Probability of a Theory or a Hypothesis: Some of the Uses and Misuses of the Concept of Probability.” Sociology & Social Research 62 {January}: 43‑62. [Co‑authored with Richard Ogles], 1978.

“Role Playing: An Alternative to What?” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin           3 {2}, 1977.

“Prediction and Inference in Criminology.” Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Journal 14 {August}: 177‑188. [Co‑authored with Richard Ogles], 1976.

“Reaction to the Stanford Prison Experiment: Movahedi and Banuazizi Reply.” Published in Readings in Social Psychology: Contemporary Perspective.  Edited by Dennis Krebs. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.

“Methodological Schizophrenia: A Problem in the Sociology of Science.” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 13 {January & April}: 79‑92, 1976.

“How Should One Load the Dice?” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 17 {September} 312‑314, 1976.

“Loading the Dice in Favor of Madness. “Journal of Health and Social Behavior16 {June}: 192‑197, 19975.

“Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison: A Methodological Analysis.” American Psychologist 30 {February}: 152‑160.  [Co‑authored with Ali Banuazizi], 1975.

“Role Playing and Its Associated Problems of Inference: Movahedi & Banuazizi Reply.” American Psychologist 30 {October}: 1016‑1018, 1975.

“A Comment on the Distinction between Formal Statements and Empirical Propositions and Its Implication for Some Critiques of  Parsons.” Sociological Research Symposium, Vol. 1, pp. 10‑16, published by Virginia Commonwealth University, 1973.

Axiomatic Theory, Informative Value of Propositions and Derivation Rules of Ordinary Language.” American Sociological Review 38: 416‑424,  [Co‑authored with Richard Ogles], 1973.

BOOK REVIEWS

On The Freud Watch: Public Memoirs by Paul Roazen (2003). Free

Association Book,  Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. 30, No.1, Pp.129-134. The journal came in 2006.

Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities, by Martha Huggins, Mika Haritos-Fatouros and Philip Zimbardo, Journal of the South Eastern Latin Americanist, Volume XLVII, No. 1,2; Pp. 141-145, 2003.

The Contemporary Kleinian of London, Roy Schafer (EDT), International University Press, 1997, pp. 440. Modern Psychoanalysis

Working With Resistance, Martha Stark. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1994. 302 pp. Modern Psychoanalysis, Pp. 102-104, 1995.

Melanie Klein, Volume I: First Discoveries And First System, 1919-1932. Jean-Michel Petot. Trans. Christine Trollop. Madison Connecticut: International University Press, 1990. 314 PP, 1991.

Melanie Klein, Volume Ii: The Ego And The Good Object, 1932-1966. Jean-Michel Petot. Trans. Christine Trollop. Madison Connecticut: International University Press, 1991. 282 pp. Modern Psychoanalysis., 1992.

Psychotherapy in a New Key, by Hans Strupp and Jeffrey Binder. Modern Psychoanalysis, Vol. 11, No. one & Two, 1986.

Networks, Exchange and Coercion: The Elementary Theory and Its Application, by David Miller and Bo Anderson. American  Journal of Sociology 84 {July}:270‑273, 1983.

Reviewer & Critic, The IQ Game: A Methodological Inquiry into the Heredity‑Environment Controversy  by Howard F. Taylor. Author Meets the Critics Session of the Annual Meeting of Eastern   Sociological Society, Philadelphia, 1983.

Techniques and Problems of Theory Construction in Sociology,” by Gerald Hage. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology {1 & 2}: 144‑145, 1977.